A record number of Swarthmore College alums have been nominated for the 2010 Barrymore Awards, the winners of which will be announced in Philadelphia on October 4, 2010 at a ceremony inside the Walnut Street Theatre.
Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Fringe show from 2009, WELCOME TO YUBA CITY, received a total of six nominations–a record for any production to date in the group’s history. The acting ensemble and creative team for YUBA CITY included Dito van Reigersberg ’94 (actor), Sarah Sanford ’99 (actor), Kim Comer ’09 (master electrician), and Lang Performing Arts Center staff member Dave Todaro (assistant lighting designer). WELCOME TO YUBA CITY enjoyed the largest audiences of any Pig Iron production at the Philadelphia Live Arts/Fringe Festival since 1997, and was also the best-attended show of the entire festival last September. It was reviewed by Jason Zinoman in the NEW YORK TIMES, and the company hopes to revive the production for tours in the near future.
The nominations for YUBA CITY are:
Outstanding Overall Production of a Play, Outstanding Direction of a Play by Quinn Bauriedel ’94 (Quinn is also a part-time faculty in the Swarthmore Department of Theater), Outstanding Set Design by Mimi Lien, Outstanding Ensemble in a Play, Independence Foundation Award for Outstanding New Play (for the ensemble and playwright Deborah Stein ’99), and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play by Charlotte Ford (a Bryn Mawr alum and recent participant in Swarthmore Project in Theater).
Sarah Sanford ’99 has also been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in THE HUNTER GATHERERS at Theatre Exile and The F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist.
You can read a full list of nominees on the Theatre Alliance website.
Also in the news, Pig Iron will also premiere a new work at Christ Church Neighborhood House as part of this year’s Philadelphia Live Arts Festival: CANKERBLOSSOM, very freely inspired by Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. For CANKERBLOSSOM, director Dan Rothenberg ’95 has teamed up with cartoonist and pioneering puppeteer artist Beth Nixon, whose fantastical cardboard creations work alongside stop motion animation, video projection, live music, and Pig Iron’s signature physical style to create this shadowy fairytale land. For more information about the company and the show, check out their website http://www.pigiron.org/.